Greeley woman dead after being stabbed multiple times by her husband, police say

Members of the Greeley Police Department investigate a stabbing death that took place at 807 31st Avenue in Greeley. Juan Manuel Velasquez-Trinidad, 51, was arrested for the death of his wife Martha Trinidad which occurred around noon on Friday.

The Greeley Police Department investigate a murder that occurred at 807 31st Avenue in Greeley on Friday afternoon. Juan Manuel Velasquez-Trinidad, 51, was arrested for the stabbing death of his wife Martha Trinidad.

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A community that residents described as quiet was transformed Friday into a major crime scene as police mulled around a home where they say a man stabbed his wife in the chest multiple times and left her bleeding to death while he went to turn himself in at Greeley police headquarters.

Juan Manuel Velasquez-Trinidad, 51, at 12:25 p.m. went to the front desk of the police station less than ½ mile from his home to report he had stabbed his wife, Martha Velasquez, 47, in the chest, police said.

Authorities responded to the duplex in the 800 block of 31st Avenue and found a woman bleeding and “suffering from severe stab wounds to her chest,” Greeley Police Lt. Steve Nelson said.

She was transported by ambulance to North Colorado Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 2:43 p.m. as a result of her wounds.

“We are continuing to investigate the incident,” Nelson said. He declined to comment further because of the ongoing investigation and said authorities won’t likely release any additional details until early next week.

Irene Sirratt lives one house away from where the stabbing occurred. She said she had just laid down and was listening to the television with the volume turned up when she heard a woman’s scream.

Sirratt, 48, said she thought it was the TV show. It wasn’t until dogs started barking and she looked outside that she realized something had happened. Moments later, she saw emergency responders rush the woman to the ambulance “really fast.”

“I’m in shock that it happened,” Sirratt said, police cars still visible from her front window. “This has me stunned. Just stunned.”

She said the community, which is packed with duplexes and small apartment buildings, has started to get more crowded and isn’t as quiet as it used to be, but she never thought anything like this could happen.

Velasquez mostly kept to herself but “seemed friendly,” Sirratt said, adding that she sometimes saw her going out for walks down the winding maze of local streets.

Velasquez-Trinidad has been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder.

That’s not his first brush with the law. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to violating a protection order, court records show. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and served one year of probation.

Velasquez’s immediate family lives next door to the house police investigated Friday evening. They declined to comment.

Amy Charles, 27, has lived across the street from the small home where the stabbing occurred for about three months, and she has been in the neighborhood for six months.

She said she never spoke with the couple across the street but said she saw them working in the yard about a week ago.